In Unreal Boys, much of the emphasis was on returning to a childhood one never had while growing up gay, which makes a lot of sense. For me and other people who enjoy it from a non-penis having perspective, I think there's a different sort of longing, too. Part of the appeal of yaoi in general is a separation from misogynistic expectations. In shoujo romance, whether the girl is defiant of gender expectations or not, she still exists in relation to them. There's no escape. Even if the male lead is respectful and wants an equal partnership, that feels like an exception, not typical, and fragile at that. Shipping, yaoi, bl, slash: it's a way to enjoy romance without the weight of misogyny affecting the story. Plus, sexually, it feels inherently unequal--in a relationship between two men, who tops and bottoms is determined by preference. When you're born with a vagina, there's a certain role expected. Of course there's pegging, but that isn't mutually pleasurable, and the guy has to be into it. Less meaningfully, boys bottoming is a lot hotter than women bottoming, in general. Though my preferences fall along the range of shota to bishonen, which is why I don't like bara and the majority of irl gay porn. For shipping, as opposed to straight-up yaoi, part of the reason is that female characters are less developed, so there's less meaningful relationships to interpret romantically. Still, I feel like I'd still prefer m/m even if there were better written female characters. It's something to think about. Anyway, in terms of shota, there's a few reasons we (being the fujoshi/general not cis men who like shota) might enjoy it. For one thing, they're sort of the ultimate uke (though seme and uke feel a little out of place in 2023 to be honest, haha). They appeal to the innocence, cuteness, curiosity and/or uncertainy you usually see in ukes. They complement a lot of other kinks, i.e. noncon, dubcon, size difference, age difference, loss of virginity, etc. etc. All the popular tags you'd see on AO3. They're "nonthreatening" as far as men/boys go. (I say this with the exception of dominant shota doujins,) they haven't developed an understanding of the way the world works yet, so in some oneeshota, you'll see unadulterated appreciation and curiosity rather than expectation and sexual demands. They're natually made to be dominated by either gender in many cases. They're androgynous, and since many people who like yaoi are queer, this is a nice ideal. Personally, if I could imagine the ideal of an androgynous body, it would be the shota. Boobs take away from the androgynous form, like with futa, who are just women with dicks. And this might sound a little weird, but its easier to think of a feminine dick than a masculine pussy. Although, I did read a fic described as "trans man topping shota with his tdick" and I hope for the day we'll see that in doujinshi! Less likely, though, bc visual smut is always going to be penetration oriented, and for all it lacks, western smut (smut being very much distinct from porn) seems to be a little further along on the trans sex front. also, here's a study on the motivations for yaoi. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6002055/ it doesn't capture all the ideas floating around but it's nice to have some legitimacy. There's a lot of discourse surrounding yaoi itself (and that's even when its unproblematic) unfortunately, so between that and the shota and everything else its like everything we like is in a constant state of furious debate. Don't even get me started on proship/anti discourse, if you've ever heard of that. It's messed up, but interesting, and its one that always tends to come back around to shota. ANYWAY this is a whole rant, oops. Everyone who likes yaoi and shota will have a difference perspective, but that's just a few of my random ideas, lol.
Many thanks for your perspectives and the link to the study - interesting with an empirical study like I'm doing myself with shota fans! "For shipping, as opposed to straight-up yaoi" What's the difference? "part of the reason is that female characters are less developed, so there's less meaningful relationships to interpret romantically." Can you elaborate? Where are female characters less developed? Is it like that in general in shōjo? That male characters have more color, agency, interests, and so on? Would make sense to me, see my old video on Kokoro Botan: ua-cam.com/video/0KjiaS3Mkh4/v-deo.html I hadn't heard of pro- and antishippers but I read up on it now. Don't you feel that this is a very outside-Japan discourse? In the English-speaking internet mainly? Do you think yaoi and shota reading patterns and attitudes are different in Japan?
@@karl.andersson well, shipping as a word technically means any two characters you like together, so yaoi falls under it, but when i hear shipping i think of a romance that isn't canon. and in this case, i do mean specifically slash shipping. yaoi is really only for japanese mlm romance manga, in terms of genre description. but then, it'll also be used as a tag for shipping on pixiv, and of course has a pretty blanket meaning jokingly, so it's complicated. BUT, i think yaoi manga very often doesn't invoke community the same way shipping does. on pixiv, the narusasu tag is much, much larger than the usamisa and even junjou romantica tag overall. for ships, i almost think the lack of content inspites content creation, so a community forms, creating writing and art and overlapping in pixiv, ao3, twitter, tumblr, etc. it's especially nice to see when a fandom has equal popularity in japan and the u.s., because there's some fun interaction, then. i've even seen japanese creators participate in western ship week events in my preferred fandom, which is cool. honestly, it is unfair for me to judge shoujo, because its not something i typically consume. but when i say less developed female characters, im mostly referring to mainstream anime. sakura, misa amane, uraraka, etc. they're not bad characters, and some are actually pretty good, but their character development isn't as much of a priority. their relationships don't have the same depth as "power of friendship" male shonen characters have with each other. and like, look at any anime--male characters outnumber female ones 5/1. when they are there, its often to create a disappointing endgame romance. this is also why wlw ships are so rare, but that's a different issue. a very common structure in fictional friend groups is the MC, their rival and/or best friend, and the woman. and, well, in friendships of three, its always someone who gets left behind. in any case, its not really intentional, it just happens. i think this interview with the persona creators about sums it up: "HASHINO: I’ve never successfully forged a true friendship with a girl in real life. SOEJIMA: Neither have I. HASHINO: I guess that means we couldn’t implement it into the game because we don’t know what it’s like. (laughs)" as for the anti/proship stuff, it is very western discourse, but that's part of the problem. it bleeds into the harassment of japanese creators as well, to the point that jp fandom ppl have documents explaining western discourse, and many jp creators block people with "proship dni" in their twitter bio for their own safety. It often bleeds into xenophobia, for ex. an exchange I saw recently: A: you ship kaeluc??? (kaeya/diluc, genshin impact) you know that's incest, right? B: they're brothers in arms, not brothers. kaeluc is really popular in china, and none of them have an issue with it. A: well, chinese fans are always gross and weird like that! so, its a western return to puritanism but for leftists this time. the u.s. seems to have more shame and reactive fear of taboo in general, and this is how it manifests in fandom. japan has a much more "live and let live" attitude as far as i can tell. because it is just fiction and art, and you can't control how people interact with and create art. the japanese artists i follow publicly post shota, there's someone literally publishing a shota-fied doujin about my ship. but for me and my friends, we have to block half the fandom and create a thoroughly vetted discord server before we even think about discussing it. that's not to say the jp creators don't experience harassment, but i think people feel much more entitled to be assholes here. also, someone i see a lot on twitter has been researching the resurgence of antishipper ideology x.com/SamAburime/status/1655667016441667584?s=20
Thank you. It's interesting with the unabashed dominance of boy characters that everyone (not only actual boy viewers) seem to enjoy. In my reading, it points to the power of the boy as an ideal in society, something that some of my research participants talk about too. Interesting to glimpse the shipping discourse. It's funny how it is so heated despite everyone is there for more or less the same thing. And there's definitely ethnocentrism in those attacks on Japanese creators. It's a clash between two worlds, two mindsets.
fun fact there is many recent studies that show that the myth "that most modern day fujos are straight cis-women' is not as true as most believe with Trans-Men, Asexual Woman and Bi NB-Men all making up much larger percentages of the Fujo community than previously realized. Anyways great video, thank you.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
In Unreal Boys, much of the emphasis was on returning to a childhood one never had while growing up gay, which makes a lot of sense. For me and other people who enjoy it from a non-penis having perspective, I think there's a different sort of longing, too.
Part of the appeal of yaoi in general is a separation from misogynistic expectations. In shoujo romance, whether the girl is defiant of gender expectations or not, she still exists in relation to them. There's no escape. Even if the male lead is respectful and wants an equal partnership, that feels like an exception, not typical, and fragile at that. Shipping, yaoi, bl, slash: it's a way to enjoy romance without the weight of misogyny affecting the story. Plus, sexually, it feels inherently unequal--in a relationship between two men, who tops and bottoms is determined by preference. When you're born with a vagina, there's a certain role expected. Of course there's pegging, but that isn't mutually pleasurable, and the guy has to be into it. Less meaningfully, boys bottoming is a lot hotter than women bottoming, in general. Though my preferences fall along the range of shota to bishonen, which is why I don't like bara and the majority of irl gay porn.
For shipping, as opposed to straight-up yaoi, part of the reason is that female characters are less developed, so there's less meaningful relationships to interpret romantically. Still, I feel like I'd still prefer m/m even if there were better written female characters. It's something to think about.
Anyway, in terms of shota, there's a few reasons we (being the fujoshi/general not cis men who like shota) might enjoy it. For one thing, they're sort of the ultimate uke (though seme and uke feel a little out of place in 2023 to be honest, haha). They appeal to the innocence, cuteness, curiosity and/or uncertainy you usually see in ukes.
They complement a lot of other kinks, i.e. noncon, dubcon, size difference, age difference, loss of virginity, etc. etc. All the popular tags you'd see on AO3.
They're "nonthreatening" as far as men/boys go. (I say this with the exception of dominant shota doujins,) they haven't developed an understanding of the way the world works yet, so in some oneeshota, you'll see unadulterated appreciation and curiosity rather than expectation and sexual demands. They're natually made to be dominated by either gender in many cases.
They're androgynous, and since many people who like yaoi are queer, this is a nice ideal. Personally, if I could imagine the ideal of an androgynous body, it would be the shota. Boobs take away from the androgynous form, like with futa, who are just women with dicks. And this might sound a little weird, but its easier to think of a feminine dick than a masculine pussy. Although, I did read a fic described as "trans man topping shota with his tdick" and I hope for the day we'll see that in doujinshi! Less likely, though, bc visual smut is always going to be penetration oriented, and for all it lacks, western smut (smut being very much distinct from porn) seems to be a little further along on the trans sex front.
also, here's a study on the motivations for yaoi. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6002055/ it doesn't capture all the ideas floating around but it's nice to have some legitimacy.
There's a lot of discourse surrounding yaoi itself (and that's even when its unproblematic) unfortunately, so between that and the shota and everything else its like everything we like is in a constant state of furious debate. Don't even get me started on proship/anti discourse, if you've ever heard of that. It's messed up, but interesting, and its one that always tends to come back around to shota.
ANYWAY this is a whole rant, oops. Everyone who likes yaoi and shota will have a difference perspective, but that's just a few of my random ideas, lol.
Many thanks for your perspectives and the link to the study - interesting with an empirical study like I'm doing myself with shota fans!
"For shipping, as opposed to straight-up yaoi"
What's the difference?
"part of the reason is that female characters are less developed, so there's less meaningful relationships to interpret romantically."
Can you elaborate? Where are female characters less developed? Is it like that in general in shōjo? That male characters have more color, agency, interests, and so on? Would make sense to me, see my old video on Kokoro Botan: ua-cam.com/video/0KjiaS3Mkh4/v-deo.html
I hadn't heard of pro- and antishippers but I read up on it now. Don't you feel that this is a very outside-Japan discourse? In the English-speaking internet mainly? Do you think yaoi and shota reading patterns and attitudes are different in Japan?
@@karl.andersson
well, shipping as a word technically means any two characters you like together, so yaoi falls under it, but when i hear shipping i think of a romance that isn't canon. and in this case, i do mean specifically slash shipping. yaoi is really only for japanese mlm romance manga, in terms of genre description. but then, it'll also be used as a tag for shipping on pixiv, and of course has a pretty blanket meaning jokingly, so it's complicated. BUT, i think yaoi manga very often doesn't invoke community the same way shipping does. on pixiv, the narusasu tag is much, much larger than the usamisa and even junjou romantica tag overall. for ships, i almost think the lack of content inspites content creation, so a community forms, creating writing and art and overlapping in pixiv, ao3, twitter, tumblr, etc. it's especially nice to see when a fandom has equal popularity in japan and the u.s., because there's some fun interaction, then. i've even seen japanese creators participate in western ship week events in my preferred fandom, which is cool.
honestly, it is unfair for me to judge shoujo, because its not something i typically consume. but when i say less developed female characters, im mostly referring to mainstream anime. sakura, misa amane, uraraka, etc. they're not bad characters, and some are actually pretty good, but their character development isn't as much of a priority. their relationships don't have the same depth as "power of friendship" male shonen characters have with each other. and like, look at any anime--male characters outnumber female ones 5/1. when they are there, its often to create a disappointing endgame romance. this is also why wlw ships are so rare, but that's a different issue. a very common structure in fictional friend groups is the MC, their rival and/or best friend, and the woman. and, well, in friendships of three, its always someone who gets left behind. in any case, its not really intentional, it just happens. i think this interview with the persona creators about sums it up:
"HASHINO: I’ve never successfully forged a true friendship with a girl in real life.
SOEJIMA: Neither have I.
HASHINO: I guess that means we couldn’t implement it into the game because we don’t know what it’s like. (laughs)"
as for the anti/proship stuff, it is very western discourse, but that's part of the problem. it bleeds into the harassment of japanese creators as well, to the point that jp fandom ppl have documents explaining western discourse, and many jp creators block people with "proship dni" in their twitter bio for their own safety. It often bleeds into xenophobia, for ex. an exchange I saw recently:
A: you ship kaeluc??? (kaeya/diluc, genshin impact) you know that's incest, right?
B: they're brothers in arms, not brothers. kaeluc is really popular in china, and none of them have an issue with it.
A: well, chinese fans are always gross and weird like that!
so, its a western return to puritanism but for leftists this time. the u.s. seems to have more shame and reactive fear of taboo in general, and this is how it manifests in fandom. japan has a much more "live and let live" attitude as far as i can tell. because it is just fiction and art, and you can't control how people interact with and create art.
the japanese artists i follow publicly post shota, there's someone literally publishing a shota-fied doujin about my ship. but for me and my friends, we have to block half the fandom and create a thoroughly vetted discord server before we even think about discussing it. that's not to say the jp creators don't experience harassment, but i think people feel much more entitled to be assholes here.
also, someone i see a lot on twitter has been researching the resurgence of antishipper ideology x.com/SamAburime/status/1655667016441667584?s=20
Thank you. It's interesting with the unabashed dominance of boy characters that everyone (not only actual boy viewers) seem to enjoy. In my reading, it points to the power of the boy as an ideal in society, something that some of my research participants talk about too.
Interesting to glimpse the shipping discourse. It's funny how it is so heated despite everyone is there for more or less the same thing. And there's definitely ethnocentrism in those attacks on Japanese creators. It's a clash between two worlds, two mindsets.
fun fact there is many recent studies that show that the myth "that most modern day fujos are straight cis-women' is not as true as most believe with Trans-Men, Asexual Woman and Bi NB-Men all making up much larger percentages of the Fujo community than previously realized. Anyways great video, thank you.
Thanks for pointing this out, and thank you!
Not in Japan.@@karl.andersson
@@23Lgirl in Japan, even lesbian women read BL
women be shipping
They have to ship something.
@@murmurcub What does "shipping" mean?
hunterxhunter refers to Gon hunting his dad.
Gon is a Hunter of Hunters. HunterxHunter.